1. Field of the Invention
The invention is concerned with the art of washing a floor fastened carpet followed by rinsing of the carpet before the solution used to wash the carpet has had time to even start to dry onto the fibers thereof. More particularly the invention is concerned with a rug cleaning implement which in one pass over a portion of a floor fastened carpet not only washes the carpet, as for example by shampooing it, but which also immediately rinses the washed portion of the carpet and picks up the washing composition and the rinse water which has been introduced onto the carpet during the washing and rinsing operation.
2. Prior Art
A number of apparatus are known in the art for washing a floor fastened carpet. For example, rug shampooing machines are often utilized which deliver a premixed solution of a cleaning composition such as a shampoo onto a floor fastened carpet and which then have a brush, such as for example a rotary brush, for agitating the thus wetted carpet to aid in extracting dirt therefrom. Often what results is a carpet with a foam or suds covering. In many cases, the foam or suds are simply allowed to dry into the carpet. In other cases, a vacuum cleaner capable of picking up water is run over the wet and often sudsy carpet and thereby extracts a good deal of the washing solution and, when present, the foam or suds. In such a case, some of the solution remains in contact with the fibers of the carpet since no rinsing occurs. In yet other instances, a rinse machine may be run over the carpet either while the carpet is still wet or after the suds and cleaning solution have dried onto the fibers thereof. Such a rinse machine then delivers a clear rinse liquid, generally water, onto the carpet and then picks up the rinse water along with any washing solution, suds and the like into a vacuum pick-up head.
The best of the prior art methods for cleaning a floor-fastened carpet is then to first introduce and agitate a washing composition, such as a shampoo, into the carpet with a first machine and then, while the carpet is still wet, but after a definite amount of time, generally at least the time necessary to shampoo the entire carpet, to run a second machine over the carpet which rinses the carpet and picks up as much as it can of the water and cleaning compound therefrom. There are, however, several problems with even this best prior art method of operation. First, it requires the use of two separate machines, one for the cleaning or shampooing operation and a second for the rinsing operation. Also, the longer period of time which elapses between the cleaning operation and the rinsing operation, the less efficient is the rinsing operation. This is because at least some of the cleaning compound will have a chance to more thoroughly attach itself through partial or complete absorption and/or adsorption and drying, to or within the fibers of the floor-fastened carpet.
Another problem with carpet cleaning, in particular with the use of shampooing machines, has been that the complete dilute cleaning solution has often been supported by the shampooing machine itself thus requiring significant operator strength to operate, for example, the typical rotary carpet shampooer.
A single implement which would in a single continuous operation supply cleaning solution to a floor fastened carpet, agitate via brushing the cleaning solution into the fibers of the carpet, spray rinse water onto the portion of the carpet which has just been agitated, and immediately pick up the rinse water and cleaning solution together and remove them from the carpet before any drying in at all of the cleaner can have occurred, would be advantageous in that it would provide complete carpet cleaning with cleaner removal by a single machine, thus cutting down the time of cleaning of a carpet as well as the amount of equipment needed by a carpet cleaner and would thereby greater reduce carpet cleaning time, and would provide a carpet more completely free of cleaning composition, while at the same time increasing the useful life of the carpet since less cleaning compound, which might deleteriously affect the fibers of the carpet, would be left behind. The present invention is concerned with a carpet cleaning implement which provides all of these advantages and, in some specific embodiments, other advantages as well.